Are you ready to become a global educator? I am so excited to share some resources to help other teachers take the leap and connect their students to the world. This page will give you resources for international project-based learning opportunities for you and your students. Then we will remember to “glocalize” and check out some resources closer to home. I will also give you some examples of lessons that integrate the Washington State ELA standards with global education elements to get you rolling. And, finally, I’m including my own sample unit plan for inspiration. If you don’t find what you need, contact me and I will be glad to help.
International Project-Based Learning Resources
| Resource | Description |
| TEACH SDGs | This website connects educators to resources that help us teach about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There is a page for “projects” that leads to a lot of ways to get started with integrating an SDG into your classroom practice. This year I am part of a large group of educators that are working on SDGs together: #GoalsProject Team. My students will take time to work on our assigned goal this year, SDG 13 – Climate Action. |
| The World’s Largest Lesson | This amazing site has links to lessons for all of the 17 Global Goals. It has inspirational videos and a lot of information to help you get started. For instance, under Goal 13: Climate Action, I found a 60 minute lesson on “The Impact of Pollution on the Planet and Our Lives”, a great start up for our project. |
| CLEAN: Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network | CLEAN has an amazing collection of resources, especially if you have an interest in teaching climate action. You can search their collection by topic or grade level. They also have a template for creating your own lessons using their resources. I’m currently looking at a lesson they have for middle school: “Water, Water, Everywhere.” It guides you through measuring and mapping where Earth’s water is stored. It’s a science lesson, but I am hoping to find an investigative journalism twist to add. |
| Follow the Food | This is a resource page provided by the Asia Society for project-based learning that uses food to investigate cultures around the world. It is very adaptable, for multiple age levels and subjects. The byline is “Cooking Our Way to Global Understanding.” It can literally include cooking, and it is a fun topic that touches on tradition, holidays, climate, and health, but you could dig into deeper subjects, like food systems, trade, sustainability, and hunger. |
| The Ocean Drugstore | This resource is provided by NOAA. It is simply three colorful graphics that help you teach a short project-based lesson on the animals in the ocean that provide important medicines for people. Although it is a short project, it is a great tie-in for climate action or safe water lessons. NOAA has a lot of other great resources about the oceans, and we know that the health of our oceans is a global issue. Check out their page here for more resources. |
Pacific Northwest Resource List
| Resource | Description |
| Seattle Public Schools- International Education | Our state does not have a global education department, or goals, or any initiatives in the works. However, Seattle Public Schools has an International Education page and newsletter. They have a lot of helpful links and a list of community partners. |
| Global Citizen Journey | This Seattle-based organization trains members to organize international journeys as delegates or, as they put it, citizen diplomats. |
| Global Washington | This organization makes connections between Washington companies and nonprofits working in global development. They are a “hub for resources and partnerships” and they provide a monthly newsletter and a really handy website full of resources, including a pretty good blog. |
| Northwest Immigrant Rights Project | This site “promotes justice by defending and advancing the rights of immigrants through direct legal services, systemic advocacy, and community education.” This is an excellent resource for the immigration law. |
WA State ELA Standards + Global Ed
In the following table, I am going to go through the anchor standards for English Language Arts- Reading Information. For each, I am going to give you some ideas for using global education to teach the standards. You don’t have to give up your standards curriculum to create a global classroom!
For my examples, I am going to use a sample lesson that uses four articles and a video about the same subject, youth climate activist Greta Thunberg. This would be a prelude to our climate action unit. It’s a global topic, it addresses one of the Sustainable Development Goals, and it centers around a young, international celebrity. It also makes for a great literacy lesson! For copies of the articles and a link to the video, click on their titles below.
- ‘If a Kid Says Help, You Help’: Adults Urged to Join Upcoming Global Climate Strike, from CommonDreams.org
- Greta Thunberg, Climate Activist, Arrives in NY with a Message for Trump, from the NY Times
- Teen Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Arrives in NY after Sailing The Atlantic from NPR
- In Pictures: Great Thunberg arrives in New York after Atlantic Crossing, from The Local, Sweden’s News in English
- Greta Thunberg Full Speech at UN Climate Change COP24 Conference
| Anchor Standards for Reading | Global Education Example |
| 1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. | During a close reading of the articles, students would read each article multiple times to derive meaning from it, annotating the article to highlight key details and main ideas. They would paraphrase the main sections in their own words. After reading, they would discuss in teams their inferences. What did they think each author was saying? Were their messages different? |
| 2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas. | In their teams, the students would build a summary of each article and compare them. Did they have similar central ideas? In what ways do they differ? What key details did they share? Which details were unique to particular articles? |
| 3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text. | Using all three articles to study the character of Greta Thunberg, the students will create a timeline of the events in her life that they know about. How did each text tell her story? Why did the author’s make different choices? |
| 4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone. | Now the students will take a few minutes to analyze the wording of each title. They will think about the connotations of the language in the titles. What do they mean? How are they meant to affect an audience? Did the authors make specific and intentional choices? How can we tell? Based on what you see in the titles, do any publications seem to be “fans” of the young activist? Why is that? |
| 5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text relate to each other and the whole. | After analyzing the titles, the students will look at the layout and structure of each article. How are they different? How are photographs used? Maps? Social media quotes? How do these elements add to the story? Is the Swedish news source similar or different in any way? |
| 6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of the text. | Each team will come to a consensus on a possible purpose for each article. What was the author’s point of view? What were they trying to accomplish? |
| 7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words. | Now the students will watch a video showing the speech that brought fame to Greta Thunberg. They will compare their impression of her from the articles to the impression they now have from the video. How is the message the same? How is it different? Which medium is more effective for the message, a news article or a video? Why? |
| 8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning, as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence. | Each team will go back to the articles, and the video, if necessary, to carefully determine Greta Thunberg’s claims about climate action, as presented in all four sources. They will gather evidence for the claims they choose. Are her claims valid? Why or why not? |
| 9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take. | The teams will rank the articles by what they determine to be the most valid treatment of the story. They will think about bias. They will focus on factual reporting. |
| 10. Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently. | Students will have a day to digest the reading and take it home overnight, if needed. Then, the class will participate in a Socratic Seminar to discuss three guiding questions: 1. Why is Greta Thunberg an important news story? 2. Will climate action be positively impacted by this news event? 3. What is the impact of bias on these stories? |
A Sample Unit
WA State History Unit Summary: Farm Stories, Washington and the World
Students will learn about the cultural and economic connections our state and its people have with people around the world. They will research the agricultural products that we import and export, and discover the impact our trade and our consumption have on the economies and environments of our own state and beyond. They will examine the interconnectedness of our worlds and question their own understanding of themselves as global citizens. On this journey, they will dig deeply into where the food products they personally consume originate. Likewise, they will track locally produced products (i.e. blueberries and other fruits) end up around the world. They will discover the connections between immigration and our state’s economy, and they will gain a greater understanding of imports, exports, tariffs, and trade wars. Overall, they will understand more thoroughly Washington’s position in the world’s economy while making connections with how people in other parts of the world make their living. (Click on the unit title for the full document.)
Disclaimer: This website is not an official U.S. Department of State website. The views and information presented are the participant’s own and do not represent the Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms, the U.S. Department of State, or IREX.
Create to Learn 